'N Sync: All that glitters

N'Sync members say they don't take their image too seriously, but their music is another story Song clip of "Bye Bye Bye": MP3 or WAV sound (Courtesy Jive Records)

March 23, 2000
Web posted at: 5:37 p.m. EST (2237 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- 'N Sync is gathering no moss this week.

The boy band is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Rolling Stone. Sunday night, it plans to perform with Gloria Estefan on the Oscar telecast. And its single "Bye Bye Bye" is propelling "No Strings Attached," the band's latest release.

So the boys, these days, are golden -- silver, too.

Photographers literally coated band members with sparkling, silver glitter for the cover shot of the March 30 Rolling Stone. "They glam-rocked us," Justin Timberlake says. "They put it all over our faces."

A glittery version of the band is in the latest issue of "Rolling Stone"

Their faces join a growing list of their contemporaries Rolling Stone has covered. Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys already have graced the cover of the magazine, which once scorned flavors-of-the-month bands like New Kids on the Block.

Changing times demanded a change in coverage, says Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner.

"Those groups were never as dominant as what you've got now," Wenner says. "And what you've got now is a very genuine, legitimate trend going on here."

The teeny-pop trend is so entrenched that MTV recently hit the bands that feed it with "2gether," a movie poking fun at boy bands. 'N Sync wasn't offended.

"That was a funny thing," Timberlake says. "We almost came this close to doing a cameo ... but we didn't have time."

With a rebel yell

Since the release of its self-titled debut album in 1998, 'N Sync has gone through a couple of legal struggles. It won a settlement in a breakup with the Orlando, Florida-based management company that created the group. The quintet also changed labels.

Newly independent of their Orlando-based management company, the boy band is celebrating with a rising new single titled "Bye, Bye, Bye"

The new album title, "No Strings Attached," attests to the performers' new independence. It also highlights their desire to set themselves apart from what member Chris Kirkpatrick calls "the whole boy band thing."

"There's so much crap out there right now ... that we get clumped into," he says. "You know, we take it with a grain of salt and just say, 'Hey, we're guys, so we're a boy band.'

"When they start labeling you and saying, 'This is what a boy band does,' ... that's when we start to break away and rebel a little bit."

Teen scene: Orlando success stories
January 21, 2000
'N Sync settles suit with ex-promoter
December 30, 1999
Boy groups following formula to success
January 19, 1999

'N Sync
Rolling Stone

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